About us

totalcontent is a creative copywriting partnership that has a way with words, and ideas on how your business can use them intelligently. Our writing is straightforward without being simple, clever without being clever-clever, lively without being breathless.

We help organisations and agencies hit the right note and put the right words in the right places. If you want help with your tone of voice, brand positioning, a website, a snappy name, a well-crafted thousand words or anything in between, you know where to come.

Biographies

jim k davies.

deborah kings.

Jim uses words as the starting point for creative ideas. He’s helped clients such as Paul Smith, Royal Mail, Nokia and Orange with everything from one-liners and naming to ads, books, websites, social media and annual reports. He’s also a published author and columnist whose distinctive brand of cultural commentary has appeared widely in design magazines and national newspapers.

Deborah runs the totalcontent studio, as well as helping out with writing assignments. A former account director at a top London PR company, Deborah has a keen editorial eye and ran the writing workshops at her agency. Blessed with impeccable taste and judgement, she’s hot on brainstorming ideas, editing, proofing, and press release writing... and chases late payments like a rottweiler.

Clients

Variety, as they say, keeps things spicy. totalcontent helps a tasty range of clients, from chunky well-known brands, to smaller, funkier clients. Several we work with directly, others via some of the most creative agencies in the UK.

brands.

agencies.

articles.

Boots

Crabtree & Evelyn

Godiva Chocolatier

LEGO Education

London Philharmonic Orchestra

Marks & Spencer

National Gallery

Neal’s Yard Remedies

Neff

Nokia

Orange

Paul Smith

The Premier League

Royal Mail

Sharp Corporation

Sport England

Supercell

Tesco

Thomas Pink

V&A

Waterstones

Alphabetical

Barnbrook

Blast

Face37

Interabang

hat-trick

MadeThought

Magpie

NB

Pollitt & Partners

Proxy Studio

Purpose

Rose

Spy

StudioMakgill

Stylorouge

Supple Studio

The Chase

The Partners

True North

Why Not Associates

The Guardian

Sunday Times Magazine

Daily Telegraph

Financial Times

The Independent

Management Today

Design Week

Print

Baseline

Domus

Idea (Japan)

Grafik

Eye

U&lc

Circular

GQ

Ray Gun

Campaign

Pipe

Hilton Guest

Holts (Canada)

Publications

Jim has written, contributed to and edited several well-received books – these include works on design and advertising, as well as chapters of fiction published through writers’ group 26.

books.

‘The Book of Guinness Advertising’ Guinness Publishing, 1999; ‘Delicious: The Design and Art Direction of Stylorouge’ Gestalten, 2001 (editor); ‘Paul Smith: True Brit’ Design Museum, 1998; Royal Mail Year Book (The Stories Behind the Stamps) 1999; Royal Mail Year Book 2000; Royal Mail Year Book 2001; Royal Mail Year Book 2002; Royal Mail Year; Book 2009; Royal Mail Year Book 2010’; ‘10: Markit’s First Decade’ Why Not Associates, 2012; ‘Guy’s Tower: 40 Years On’, Spy, 2014.

Awards

In 2008, Jim received about the highest creative honour you can get — a D&AD Gold Award for his work with the Partners on the National Gallery’s ‘Grand Tour’. One of the six Royal Mail Year Books Jim has written was nominated for a D&AD Silver Award in 2010, and our work has been accepted into the D&AD Annual eight times.

Elsewhere, we picked up ‘Best Private Sector Annual Report’ at the 2006 Communicators in Business Awards for the Oskar annual report, and an Award of Excellence at the 2005 Communication Arts for the Orange CSR report. Our work has also been recognised at the Cannes, Fresh, Cream, Design Week, Benchmark, and DBA Awards.

Jim has served on many creative juries, including D&AD, Design Week and BAFTA. In 2012, he was foreman of the D&AD Writing for Design jury in D&AD’s 50th anniversary year.

blog

New work. Book reviews. Ideas. Likes and gripes. The following blog is something of a random visual and written notebook brought to you by totalcontent. We’ll be covering a wide range of topics, from projects and prospects, to words and writing, to typography and technology, graphics and popular culture… and much more besides. Hope it tickles your fancy and feel free to have your say.

In the October/November 2017 issue of Creative Review, writer Nick Asbury delves into the origins of brand storytelling and wonders whether it has had its day. Below is a Private View column Jim wrote for DesignWeek in March 2008, which is very much on the same wavelength.

At the end of August, Tesco stopped selling ‘one-use’ 5p plastic bags. It was a brave, bold move designed to reduce litter and the number of bags sent to landfill.
Although the UK supermarket chain has given out 1.